


Horizon: Lost Solstice

by soapostate



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Banuk - Freeform, Exploration, Fluff, Horizon Zero Dawn - Freeform, Multi, New Machines, OCs - Freeform, Ongoing story, Other, Plot, Shadow Carja, Slow Burn, banuk lesbians ft carja and oseram lesbians and a gay, banuk weraks, carja, corrupt werak, first fanfic, horizon - Freeform, nora - Freeform, original horizon story, oseram, overriden machines, post aloy, sun carja, wordbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25109824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soapostate/pseuds/soapostate
Summary: Lugaru, a Banuk huntress, discovers a new threat to the world as machines rise once again. With the help of her Watcher companion Freru, can she stop it before it's too late?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Horizon: Lost Solstice

_There._

The machine’s white shell shone in the weak winter sun, its feet churning up snow as it pushed its head into the ground, cutting up the little grass that had survived the recent storm. Its antlers, large, propeller-like things, whirred softly as it turned away from its unseen pursuer.

_Quiet._

The huntress stepped through her brush cover, carefully placing each foot as not to alert the machine’s sharp sensors. Her spear, a long, painted thing made of the same metal her prey was, hung loosely in her grasp. Its tip traced a thin line through the powdery snow until it caught on a stone hiding beneath the layer of white, causing a small din.

_Shit._

The deer-like machine stopped its toiling and raised its head, a single yellow eye scanning its surroundings with routine certainty. The huntress held her breath as the grazer began to approach the small patch of undergrowth she hid in. It made its way toward her with painfully slow efficiency until she could hear the whirring and clicking of its inner machinery, working hard to protect its vessel. Sadly, it couldn’t protect it against Lugaru.

The huntress leaped upward right as that questioning eye flashed from yellow to red, shoving her spear up into its ocular and causing it to fall backward. She withdrew her weapon and pushed it into its chest now, sending sparks flying out of where its heart _should_ have been. The assailant finished with a quick jab to its neck, severing the essential wires that connected the head to the rest of the body.

Lugaru crouched beside the dead grazer, waiting until the sparking died down before touching it. “Thank you for a clean kill,” The Banuk huntress muttered a soft prayer to the Blue Light, resting a hand on the broken machine’s face and closing her eyes for a moment.

“Alright,” She suddenly stood, shrugging off her brief reverence, and moved to inspect the torso of the machine, where four canisters of greenish liquid sat unharmed. “Let’s get down to business, yeah?”  
  


* * *

  
After taking great care not to break any more parts of her kill, Lugaru gathered her harvest and began making her way back through the woods. She trudged through the thick snow, her catch clinking and jingling in the animal-skin bag on her back. Lu wove through the trees as they creaked under the new weight of the snow and ice, their branches occasionally shifting and sending a clump of the stuff plummeting to the ground.

Eventually, the young Banuk woman arrived at a sharp outcropping of rock. The overhang formed a sort of sunken cavity barely noticeable by passerby—a perfect hideout for a Banuk trying to get away from her werak.

Windchimes made of small shards of machinery sounded as Lugaru arrived, an invisible wind causing them to brush against each other with sharp notes of contact. “Freru,” Lugaru called, squeezing into the narrow opening that allowed her to access the hidden natural chamber. She jumped down into the cave with a soft thud echoed by the stone walls. “You here?”

Upon entering the cavity, Lu immediately moved to light a blaze lamp that hung from the tight entryway. The warm light spread across the stone room, illuminating walls painted with stars and maps of planets. Detailed chalk drawings of machines and their parts overlapped with the paintings, creating a hectic atmosphere along with the many furs, machine parts, and trinkets sprawled across the floor.  
As Lu looked around her little hideout, she noticed that all of the pelts seemed to have been gathered in one suspiciously large pile at the far edge of the cavern. “You don’t even need these,” She chuckled, dragging a thick pelt off of the pile to reveal an odd-looking watcher that had buried itself in the skins. 

The watcher’s ocular sensor flashed to life, countering the yellow light of the lantern with its blue. It turned its head to Lugaru and made a small clicking sound, sounding almost friendly. “Did I wake you up, Frer?” The Banuk asked with a smile, patting the top of Freru’s head and drawing a soft whirr of reply from the machine.

Freru was an interesting robot compared to the rest. He was the first (and only) successful experiment of Lugaru’s, in which she managed to repair a watcher she’d hunted and actually rewire it so it kept the Blue Light, essentially saving it from the Derangement. It had taken her years and dozens of dissected watchers to even learn how they worked, yet she’d somehow managed to fix this one. He was her prized possession—one hopefully none of her werak would ever know about. At least not yet. They’d make her out to be a witch or a heretic when Lu was the exact opposite. She’d succeeded in something no other Banuk had done: she’d brought the Light back to a machine permanently, making it a docile companion to humans. She was the most successful shaman in the Cut. But she couldn’t have just one machine to exemplify her power. They’d claim it was a glitch or good luck. She needed _more_ before she could make her power known.

“I got some more shit,” Lugaru said, removing her hand from Freru’s head to open up her bag. She took out one of the blaze canisters she got from the grazer and held it out for Freru to see. “A grazer got away from its herd,” She explained her catch simply with a proud shrug.

Using her hand to tilt Freru’s ‘chin’ up, Lugaru unclipped the latches she’d attached to the bottom of his head. “Here we go,” She muttered, removing the empty canister that had been latched to Freru’s chin. She replaced it with the new one she’d gotten from the grazer, attaching it to her companion with a satisfying click.

After overriding Freru, Lugaru had decided to add some modifications to make him a bit stronger since watchers were some of the easiest machines to kill. She’d started with just adding pretty necklaces or painting his white armor, but then she’d started adding more useful things like a small flamethrower at the mouth inspired by the bellowbacks that sometimes made their way through the cut. Now, Freru had his flamespitter, sharper claws, and other more aesthetic upgrades. Paintings of stars and crests covered the watcher’s black neck and eye symbols dotted his armored torso, while his tail was covered in colorful handprints.

Lugaru tossed the empty canister to the other side of the cave, sending a few other discarded cylinders she’d left there rolling until they bounced against each other or a wall. Freru’s tail lashed slightly as Lu leaned against him, soaking in the slight warmth that emanated from his body. She began rustling through the rest of her bag, pulling out scraps of metal and pieces of wire and synthetic muscle. She’d gotten a watcher heart earlier as well—something that’d come in handy if Freru ever got himself into trouble, or if she ever managed to override another watcher.  
“I also found this thing,” Lugaru said, talking half to herself and half to Freru—something she often did—and pulled out an old, half-decomposed book she’d found caught in the remains of a scrapper. 

She began flipping through the mildewed pages, which were disappointingly empty. “What a waste,” Lu muttered, tossing the book to hit the opposite wall. “Paper’s too molded to be any good for maps.”

Maps had become sort of Lugaru’s specialty. Whether it be maps of machines and their anatomies or maps of the night sky, Lu had attempted it. She’d covered the walls in maps of the night sky, one of her favorite things to study, and maps of machines, most notably watchers. She’d recently moved to the low ceiling of the cave now that she’d filled up the walls, where a map of a grazer sat patiently waiting completion. Smaller maps were drawn on pieces of bark or book that Lugaru found on her hunting trips or bought from some trader.

Making a mental note to use the leather from the book cover to bind up some of her bark maps and throw out the paper, Lugaru moved over to the other side of the cave and shifted through the empty canisters. She could maybe keep water in these, or maybe bugs so she could look at them without them flying away. Much easier to map a bug that way. “Do you think I should rinse it out before I stick a bug in here?” Lu asked her watcher companion, holding out the canister for Freru to inspect. “I think I ought to-”  
“RU!” Came a voice from outside, causing Lugaru to jump and Freru’s eye to flash yellow; caution.

“Shit,” Lugaru said, quickly dropping the canister and scrambling to the rift she used to leave. She climbed up and began slipping herself into the narrow crevice, nearly forgetting to extinguish the lantern. “Sorry, Frer,” She muttered an apology to the watcher for their short meeting. “I’ll try to be back for longer tomorrow.”  
With that, Lu climbed out of the cavity and back into the cold real world. She grabbed her spear from where she’d left it leaning against the narrow stone walls, then ran into the woods, nearly tripping with every hasty step. She was not prepared to be sought out at this time _at all._

 _“RU!”_ Shouted the voice again, dangerously close.  
“I’m over here!” Lugaru returned, sliding down a snowbank and nearly crashing through a frozen pond before landing in a pile of snow with an _oof_. Hopefully she was far enough away from her hideout that no-one looking for her would find it in her place.

“What in the Light are you doing?” Her pursuer carefully made its way down the snowbank Lu had so flawlessly fallen down and revealed itself to be a Banuk about Lugaru’s age—a late teen—with thick, tangled blonde hair that fell to her shoulders. Her blue eyes were bright in the reflected light of the snow, eyes crinkling in a smile. Her eyes nearly matched the thick blue wires that had been woven into the skin of her chin and upper arms—she was one of those rare few that carried the Light in their eyes as well as their souls.

“Oh, it’s you, Uneki,” Lugaru let out a small sigh of relief, a once barely noticeable action now making itself known in a puff of frosty white breath. “I’m just...resting,” She reclined back in the snow she had not-so-gracefully fallen in. “It’s tiring, being me.”

Uneki raised a brow. “I can tell,” She remarked, then held out a gloved hand to her tribemate. The fingers of her gloves had been cut off to allow her to craft more easily. “Come on. Rurk wants everyone back for a gathering.”

“A gathering? In the middle of the day?” Lugaru asked, taking Uneki’s hand and grunting as she was tugged upright. “What is he even _on_?”

“I have no clue,” The other girl replied with a shrug, picking up Lu’s spear from where she’d dropped it during her little tumble.  
“He’s getting crazier every day. I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow _he_ went Deranged,” Lugaru said, rolling her eyes and scoffing, another puff of breath escaping her mouth and nose.

Uneki chuckled, handing Lugaru her spear. “Be careful what you say, Ru,” She said, eyes glinting mischievously. “It could run in the family.”

“Oh, shut up,” Lugaru shoved Uneki with her shoulder goodnaturedly as they began walking back through the woods. “He’s just my uncle—no way I got the crazy too.”  
“Oh yeah, sure,” Uneki said with an air of disbelief, her face mockingly solemn to hide a stupid grin. “Totally.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! it means a lot to me that you took the time to read this. this is my first fanfiction and i'm super excited to start regularly posting!


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